.F7/ 




E 400 

F71 
Copy 1 



The Campaign of 1844 



BY 



WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEY FORD 



The Campaign of 1844 



BY 



WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEY FORD 



Reprinted from the Proceedings of The American Antiquarian SoaETY 
FOB October, 1909. 



WORCESTER. MASSACHUSETTS. 

THE DAVIS PRESS. 

1909. 



? 



i\* 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 



In describing a political campaign three factors demand 
attention: policies, candidates and actual results. The 
noisy and irresponsible claims of party, the rosy and decep- 
tively favorable atmosphere which surrounds the candidates, 
constitute the apparent and picturesque aspects of the 
contest, and are sometimes so far removed from actualities 
as to involve a tragedy of hope. The cold grey light of the 
day after election is the true medium for measuring the 
expectations, the claims and the character of the struggle. 
No appeal, calm or frenzied, lies from that judgment. The 
successful candidate begins to feel the responsibilities of 
his position when his followers, the unselfish as well as the 
party "bummers," press for reward, or with advice. When 
that stage is reached the campaign has become ancient 
history. The defeated are forgotten, the platform put 
away, and a popular mandate claimed for all acts of the 
new administration. The campaign of 1844 was peculiar 
in this: it marked the end of a quite remarkable political 
career — that of Van Buren; it also unmistakably marked 
a division between North and South which could only be 
healed in blood. It brought into strong relief a character 
of Massachusetts origin, but of truly national proportion. 

In 1843, the principles of the two contending parties 
(for no one believed the weight of the Liberty Party could 
affect the result) were centred upon questions that played 
little part in the campaign. Banking, currency, distribution, 
and tariff, had been discussed for years, and the division 
in opinion upon them was as wide as ever, and unfortunately 
though necessarily, rested upon party lines. The attitude 
of the leading candidates throughout the Union upon these 



questions was known, and the debates in Congress showed 
little energy or originality. They were questions which, 
like the poor, were and are always with us; and like the 
poor, required a modification in treatment as the old meas- 
ures became inadequate, and new evils or conditions arose. 
Over none of them could the country lash itself into a fury, 
and no one of them seemed to offer a single feature that 
could sweep through the States and on its merit carry the 
party to victory. Tyler was playing with Texas much 
as his predecessors had done, and in so playing invited 
war to the country and impeachment to himself. In the 
first weeks of 1844 no one could have said with confidence 
that the tariff would have been settled to general satisfaction, 
or Texas brought nearer assured independence or even 
annexation to the Union. The calm of political affairs 
was broken only by the ^^Tlig dislike of Tyler, and by the 
violence of discussion in Congress. A saying of the time 
well expressed the situation. Seven principles governed 
the parties, the five loaves and two fishes. 

Under this apparently calm exterior forces were at work 
at once permanent in their direction and increasing in 
strength, but these forces were tending to rend the country 
into sections at war with one another. For an expression 
of these forces we look in vain to the men who were then 
contending for the Presidency. The campaign of 1840 
had brought a train of bitter disappointment to both parties. 
The candidate of the Democracy had for years been desig- 
nated and with only sporadic opposition in harmless force 
and position. Van Buren had been the political heir of 
Jackson, and custom prescribed a second term as his due. 
The question of Vice-President was as usual of little import- 
ance, something to be thrown to the South or West with 
a reckless disregard of possibilities that in the actual event 
of the other party amounted to a tragedy. For Harrison 
was the chosen leader of the ^Vlligs; and his running mate 
was Tyler, a Virginian, who inherited every quality calcu- 
lated to antagonize the party from which he received his 
nomination. The Virginian dynasty ended in 1824, with 
the election of John Quincy Adams, and had in subsequent 



time exhausted its capacity for well-doing, while retaining, 
even in accentuated form, its capacity for political and 
administrative mischief. The election of 1840 long remained 
in memory as a most remarkable exhibition of popular 
feeling. It was the campaign of log cabins, rolling balls, 
coon skins and hard cider. It was vociferous, quite mean- 
ingless and inconclusive, save in ending in the defeating 
of the Jackson Democrats.^ That the noise, the drunken- 
ness and the hurrahs overthrew the Jacksonians, as was 
claimed, is not for one moment to be admitted. The 
financial conditions following the panic of 1837 were suffi- 
cient to account for the result. A brief exhibition of Harri- 
son was followed by the first experience of a Vice-President's 
succession to office. The experience was not altogether 
satisfying. A man who leaves his own to join the opposing 
party is an object of suspicion to both. He loses the con- 
fidence of the one, without gaining that of the other. At 
heart a strict constructionist, Tyler could never wear the 
Whig uniform gracefully or willingly. He acted according 
to his conscience, and it was a conscience that could not 
entirely act with either Whigs or Republican-Democrats. 
Three years of opposition brought round another presi- 
dential contest, and under new conditions. Such a stam- 
pede as had occurred in 1840 could not again occur. On 
this point Van Buren was confident. "Can we expect the 
people of this country to maintain the elevated standing 
in the eyes of the world, which they have hitherto enjoyed, 
if, after the lapse of years, and the fullest opportunity for 
reflection, they suffer themselves to be a second time 
operated upon by appliances, from the use of which every 
friend to free government must turn with mortification 
and disgust."'^ 

The country had slowly recovered from the effects of 
its speculative intoxication, and Tyler had solved none 
of the problems handed on by Van Buren in 1841. Before 
1843 the Whigs were hopelessly divided, with Webster 



^ "We go for Tippecanoe and Tyler too, 

Without a why or wherefore. " — Campaign Song. 
^ Van Buren to Snoivden and others, January 29, 1844, MS. 



6 

and Tyler on one side and Clay on the other. Before 1844 
Tyler was dreaming of a renomination, counting upon the 
support of a part of the Whigs and some of his former 
associates among the Democrats, and a brilliant political 
manoeuvre. Ambition is ever brightly coloured, but the 
ambitions of a man in Tyler's situation were veritable 
will-o'-the-wisps. No act could give him the confidence 
of the Democrats ; every act tended to deprive him of any 
confidence of the Whigs. Named in derision "Captain" 
Tyler he exerted little influence upon party movements 
though willing to bargain with every faction.^ 

Nor was the position of the Democracy as good as surface 
signs would indicate. Apparently the party acquiesced 
in the claims of Van Buren to another nomination, and on 
the policies of his first term, policies directly inherited 
from Jackson. But indications were not w^anting of rest- 
iveness under his leadership, and under the dictation of 
a policy which no longer represented a quality of fight in 
it, something ringing in tone to arouse the full energies of 
the patriots who did the voting, or saw to it that others 
voted to enable them to reap the rewards. Van Buren had 
rivals in 1844 as he had in 1840, but the interval of four 
years had greatly fed their hopes, and opened a vista of 
political accidents by which they could profit. Even Jack- 
son's influence had declined, and his command was humored 
rather than obeyed. A letter from him served to bolster 
up a cause or an individual, but could not point out a cause 
or a success. To remove Van Buren from the path of these 
ambitious ones many schemes were started. It was pro- 
posed to place him on the Supreme Bench and then take 
up Silas Wright as a candidate. If this idea originated 
with Tyler, as was believed at the time, it may be taken 
as a measure of his statesmanship and political manage- 
ment. When Wright was consulted he answered: "Tell 
Mr. Tyler from me, that if he desires to give to this whole 
country a broader, deeper, heartier laugh than it ever had, 



'"The Eleclious of yesterday and the day before sufficiently prove that there is 
no schism in the Democratic party, and not the shadow of a party for the electioo 
of John Tyler as President of the United States. " Adams, Memoirs, XI, 446. 



and at his own expense, he can effect it by making that 
nomination. "* 

In North and South this tendency to question the avail- 
abihty of Van Buren made itself felt, but not to such an 
extent as to awaken in him any suspicion of his success 
in winning the nomination. The Southerners muttered 
something about the "hypocrisy" of the New York poli- 
ticians, and attributed their conduct and sentiments to 
Van Buren. In the Northwest, Lewis Cass was coming 
forward as a candidate of some pretentions. In Pennsyl- 
vania, which had declared for Buchanan in 1842, his adher- 
ents were feeling the pulse of the State in his favor. The 
result was not promising. One of the delegates to the 
Pittsburg Convention expressing a preference for Van 
Buren was called a "sap-headed fool"; another used the 
epithet "a d — d liar" several times, and it was finally 
decided to refer the matter to the people.^ It was too 
early to push Buchanan for such a place. 

The leading figure from the South was Calhoun, no longer 
of presidential size, but possessing a following sufficient 
to awaken apprehension in the minds of his competitors. 
He himself was so completely absorbed by his views on 
slavery, and his efforts to ward off any attack, foreign or 
domestic upon it, that he had ceased to be looked upon in 
any sense as a practical leader. With the concentrated 
intensity of a fanatic he possessed some of the qualities of 
a prophet; but the cause he represented required other 
methods and other weapons that he could bring. South 
Carolina in 1832 had received a set-back that had relegated 
her leaders into that rather suspected and certainly uninflu- 
ential class of violent agitators without enough force even 
to effect a part of their purpose. In heart they were still 
nullifiers, but the increasing weight of opposition to slavery 
drove them to a defence of that institution and to the neglect 
of all other problems of state. So Calhoun found his place 
in Tyler's cabinet, whence he could conduct a keenly logical 
but entirely futile contest in words with Great Britain — 

* Silas Wnght to Van Buren, January 2, 1844. MS. 
*0. H. Browne to Van Buren, January 1, 1844. MS. 



supposed to be plotting the downfall of slavery in the 
United States. He was in his element, and even to this 
day the reader of his despatches is struck by their power 
of refined argument, and by their entire want of any quality 
which could make them acceptable. A monk of the Middle 
Ages would show just those powers and just those defects. 
As a political factor he had ceased to exist. Tyler admitted 
that he did not so much as consult Calhoun upon his own 
convention at Baltimore.^ In South Carolina the Calhoun 
men were refractory and quite disposed to have nothing 
to do with the Baltimore Convention, on the ground that 
it was a "packed jury."^ The friends of Polk in the South 
reasoned thus : that Van Buren would be first on the ticket, 
but as he would not be entirely acceptable to West and South, 
those sections must be reconciled by naming to the second 
place a man like Polk, who would be assured of the entire 
southern vote. Such an argument received support by 
the Mississippi Democratic Convention, held Januaiy 6, 
1844, which nominated Van Buren for the Presidency, 
endorsed Polk for the second place, after rejecting the 
names of Calhoun, R. M. Johnson and W. R. King. 

Henry Clay was the sole candidate of the Whigs, and 
the confidence of victory which now surrounded him made 
him the shining mark of hostile criticism as well as friendly 
adoration. Of the man nothing need be said beyond the 
tribute paid to him by Webster in this very campaign: 
"He is a man of frankness and honor, of unquestioned 
talent and ability, and of a noble and generous bearing."^ 
To his enemies he was a demagogue. His career had not 
been limited by consistency, some of his acts, both private 
and public, were picturesquely in violation of recognized 
conventions; but the personality of the man carried him 
through situations wherein even stronger men would be 
wrecked. And now the idol of his party, in the face of a 
divided opposition, he counted upon gaining his wish, and 

^"As to my convention at Baltimore, Mr. Calhoun had no more to do with it than 
a man in Nova Zembla. I never troubled myself even to enquire his opinion about 
it." John Tyler to John S. Cunnini/ham, May 8, 1856. 

'^Garland to Van Buren, January 12, 1844. MS. 

« Speech at Valley Forge, October 3, 1844. Works, II, 280. 



overreached himself in grasping at it. Before two months 
had passed his position on Texas was more than dubious, 
and the more he explained, the greater was the doubt of 
his conviction.® 

If a new candidate was to be, new issues must be raised. 
The national bank question could not receive attention 
because of Tyler's attitude. The leading discussions in 
the last session had been upon the tariff, which was not a 
strong point in Van Buren's past career, and Rule 21 of 
the House of Representatives, involving the right of petition. 
Some complained that Congress had apparently "settled 
down to an exclusive consideration of the 21st rule, and of 
such other abstract propositions as the few friends of Mr. 
Calhoun and old Mr. Adams choose to entertain it with. "^" 
Tracy of New York explained the divisions among the 
Democrats on those questions as due to the fact that "our 
party is broader than our principles," an explanation at 
once euphemistic and on the whole uncomplimentary to 
the party. Inasmuch as the agitation on these two questions 
was seen to come from Van Buren's friends, the South 
warned him that a continuance in that course would arouse 
deep distrust and dissatisfaction, which would extend to 
the presidential question and to him as the northern candi- 
date. Had tariff and abolition petitions alone been the 
issues, Calhoun would have thriven on the declamatory 
agitation. 

It would be interesting to compile the various criticisms 
passed upon Van Buren, for his friends and enemies had 
thus gauged the man not without accuracy. Rives, of 
Virginia, who had been read out of the Jackson party for 
alleged "apostasy," — a favorite word with the old Tenn- 
essean, — announced that he was opposed to the "fatal 
and demoralizing tendencies of Mr. Van Buren's whole 
system of political action, and denounced his support as 
an unscrupulous and sordid party oligarchy, working by 
the " secret and invisible agency of self constituted conclaves 

^"The object of Clay's highest ambition escaped him because, at the decisive 
moment he was untrue to himself." Schurz. Henry Clay, II, 265. 
^°Saa8 Wright to Polk, February 27, 1844, MS. 



10 

and caucuses, controlled with absolute sway by a few bold 
and adroit political managers. "^^ The criticisms of friends 
went deeper. Buchanan spoke of Van Buren's want of 
popularity in 1840, as one of the causes of the disaster of 
that year. The men who were Van Buren men acted more 
because of their hope of being earned by him into office 
and power than because of real affection or confidence in 
the man himself. The very fact of his being the inevitable 
candidate increased the irritation due to his having suffered 
a severe defeat in 1840, and his past record was being over- 
hauled in a spirit that boded much explanation on his 
part. His vote on the tariff of 1828, "the tariff of abom- 
inations," proved an annoying subject. 

Unexpectedly rumors spread of negotiations begun by 
Tyler for the annexation of Texas, and the possibility of 
a treaty became the engrossing topic. ^^ The question was 
not a new one, but one phase of it now became dominant — 
the influence such a measure would have on political suprem- 
ac}^ The contest between Whig and Democrat, could 
be set aside as immaterial; the question of slave and free 
States assumed a vast importance. But again, it was not 
existing conditions which constituted the real problem, 
but future possibilities. Dissolution of the Union was 
the talk almost of the street. Did not this in itself mark 
the extraordinaiy change which had taken place in policy 
since 1832, the height of the nullification contest? It was 
not necessary to go back so far. 

In December, 1843, Clay declined to reply to a question 
on the annexation of Texas to the United States, addressed 
to him by Mr. Child, Editor of an abolition paper, on the 
ground that he did not think it right, unnecessarily, to 
present new questions to the public. It would be wicked 
in Tyler, he said, to introduce an exciting topic, for his own 



^^ Rives to Eclmond Fontaine, January 1, 1844. 

'^Clay, in July, 1844, thouRht the Texas question "was a bubble blown up by Mr. 
Tyler in the most exceptionable manner, for sinister purposes, and its bursting has 
injured nobody but Mr. Van Buren." To Stephen H. Miller, July 1, 1844. One 
of liis correspondents, J. C. Wright, believed the question of annexation would be 
no more than a nine days' topic of vituperation, and added "with the old issues we 
are safe, depend upon it. " 



11 

selfish purposes and to produce discord and distraction in 
the nation. ^^ Later in March, after the rumor of negotia- 
tions with Texas had become pronounced, and while he 
was making a progress of the Southern States, he could 
write that there was "no such anxiety for the annexation 
here at the South as you might have imagined."^* This 
would argue that Clay's political foresight was not good, 
or that there is danger in such progresses of defeating their 
very object — that of getting in touch with public opinion, 
a danger that attends the journeyings of a President as 
well as a would-be President. 

It would have puzzled the most astute politician to give 
a reasonable forecast of the political situation in the first 
days of the last week of April, 1844. But in five days of 
that week a series of pronouncements came that did not 
clarify the standing of the two parties at once, but gave 
occasion for a movement that ended in overthrowing the 
carefully laid plans of Van Buren, in defeating Clay, and 
in irrevocably turning the public policy to the slave-holders 
at the cost of disrupting the Democracy and almost of 
disrupting the Union. On the morning of April 27 the 
National Intelligencer printed a letter from Clay against the 
immediate annexation of Texas. On the evening of the 
same day the Globe published a letter of Van Buren taking 
much the same position, ^^ a remarkable coincidence which 
gave rise to a belief that the two opponents had consulted 
one another on the matter. Four days later the secrecy 
of the Senate was violated by the publication in the New 



^^Clayto Crittenden, December 5, 1843. 

^*Clay to Crittenden, March 24, 1844. Seven days later W. S. Fulton wrote to 
Van Buren: "The Texas treaty is now the engrossing topic here. Mr. Calhoun's 
arrival induces the belief that a treaty will be immediately signed and sent to the 
Senate. The Whigs are in great confusion. They do not know what to do. If 
it is made manifest that Texas will fall into the hands of England, if the Treaty is 
rejected, they will be compelled to go for the treaty. It will be death to any southern 
man to vote against the Treaty. " W. S. Fulton to Van Buren, 31 March, 1844. MS. 

'*Van Buren wrote his letter to W. H. Hammet, a member of Congress from Missis- 
sippi, who had asked him to define his position on the question of annexation. Ham- 
met had been a Methodist preacher, but turned politician, and had supported Van 
Buren in 1840. Wright thought him vain, excitable and indiscreet, seeking to secure 
credit for himself from the reply to his questions. Van Buren sent this reply to 
Wright, who took a night upon it, thought well of it, and read it to his messmates. 



12 

York Evening Post of the treaty for the annexation of 
Texas submitted by Tyler. "It is John Tyler's last card 
for a popular whirlwind to carry him through; and he has 
played it with equal intrepidity and address. He has 
compelled Clay and Van Buren to stake their last chance 
upon opposition to the measure now, and has forced himself 
upon the whole Democracy as their exclusive candidate 
for the Presidency next December. "^^ 

Cool-headed Silas Wright at once admitted the danger 
of a serious split in the party because of Van Buren's letter, 
and saw in the opposition the hand of Calhoun as well as 
of Tyler. The disaffected improved the Texas question 
to excite passion and prejudice, and sought in the few days 
before the conventions in Baltimore to turn the agitation 
to account in securing votes for any one who would not 
antagonize the admission of Texas. ^^ As a southern man 
asserted, "Give us any northern man, or any man from a 
Free State, who will not kill us all off," a demand that 
clearly excluded Van Buren. ^^ So open was the discontent 
among the Democrats that their opponents were confident 
of success under Clay's leadership, and so true a Democrat 
as William R. King, just leaving to represent this country 
in France, confessed he saw no prospect of victory and a 
party doomed to defeat. "Discontent, division, despond- 
ency, seem to have taken complete possession of a large 
portion of our prominent men; and, with a decided 
majority of the people in our favor, we are about to be 
shamefully beaten, from a want of harmony, and concert 
of action. "^^ 

It was decided to print it at once. Van Buren was consulted, and gave his approval, 
after which Hammet was sought. While this search was being made, arrangements 
were made with Rives for putting it in type. When Hammet was run down, he 
"was frightened, and it was with some difficulty that we induced him to consent to 
our proposition for publication before he had read it; but he behaved well, and himself 
and the Major remained at the Globe office until about midnight, to examine the 
proof." Wright to Van Buren, April 29, 1844. MS. Blair was sick at the time, 
but had the letter read to him; and Rives offered Hammet one hundred dollars for 
the manuscript. 

'* Adams, Memoirs, XII, 22. 

^UVrightto the New York Delegation to the Baltimore Convention, May 2, 1844. 

^** Parmenter to Bancroft, May 6, 1844. MS. 

" King to Bancroft, May 1 2, 1844. MS. 



13 

Clay was nominated without opposition. Tyler did not 
obtain the help from his treaty which he had expected. 
His convention of office-holders met on the same day as 
the Democratic National Convention, and ended its labors 
by giving him a nomination without so much as suggesting 
a running mate. Nothing could have expressed the doubts 
of the Democrats more clearly than the conduct of the 
rival party convention. A large majority of the delegates 
had been instructed or pledged to vote for Van Buren. 
They turned down the two leading names, Van Buren and 
Cass, and took up Polk who had been intended for the 
second place on the ticket; and on the Vice Presidency 
blundered into naming Silas Wright, who would not accept 
under any condition, and thus made a second choice neces- 
sary in Dallas. New York was set aside and Pennsylvania 
recognized. Tyler's treaty was rejected by the Senate 
eight days later, 16 to 35, and Congress adjourned without 
taking a definite step in the matter of annexation. The 
session had been fi-uitful only of profitless discussion.^*^ 

Now that Van Buren was out of the way, the existence 
of Tyler as a candidate was a source of danger. Had Van 
Buren received the nomination, the Tyler following, such 
as it was, would have been in revolt, and could not hope 
for any consideration or recognition from the Van Burenites. 
So pressure was brought upon Tyler to withdraw^ from the 
contest. The Polk wing cried out for oblivion to the past, 
and promised a welcome to the republican ranks. They 
induced Jackson to write a letter in favor of Tyler's standing 
aside, on the ground that such a step would unite all Dem- 
ocrats into one family without distinction, all former differ- 
ences forgotton, and all cordially united in sustaining the 
Democratic candidates. ^^ Tyler believed that his own 
candidacy had forced the Baltimore Convention to name 
one who was favorable to the admission of Texas into the 
Union.^^ The political idea he wished to compass was 



* Adams {Memoirs, XII, 57) spoke of it as the "first session of the most perverse 
and worthless Congress that ever disgraced this Confederacy. " 
2' NUes Register, LXVI. p. 416. 
22 Tyler to Ritchie, January 9, 1851. 



14 

thus provided for, and he could retire with honor. His 
letter of withdrawal was published late in August. ^^ 

An united party! That was the cry, and resolutions on 
that line began to flow in from every part of the country. 
Sometimes the poetic and imaginative gave a curious expres- 
sion to this feeling. "Resolved," said one body of the 
unterrified, "That in the proceedings of the Baltimore 
convention we have beheld the summer storm which purifies 
the atmosphere, succeeded by the bursting forth of the 
glorious sun, the harbinger of a bright and glorious day. "^* 
Ritchie, in the Richmond Enquirer could see only victory 
as a result. "It heals all divisions; unites our party with 
bands of iron." Van Buren, good party man as he was, 
called upon his followers to support the ticket. He knew 
as well as we know to-day that it was not his Texas lettej 
which defeated him in the Convention. For years he 
wrote and talked of the intrigues and plottings that had 
overthrown him, and his relations with Polk were short 
and unfortunate, because Polk had reaped the benefits 
of this underground work. Did Van Buren have cause to 
complain of methods in which he had been so great an 
adept? In pursuing his own ends he had educated others 
in the same school of political management. 

Of the campaign methods little will suffice. There were 
the same riotous claims, the same personalities, the same 
trickery and evasion, and the same appearance, if not the 
reality, of fraud, which are noted in the aftermath of every 
campaign, be it for the election of a President or of a pound- 
master. Polk's issue was sprung as a surprise, and could 
best win if carried along with a rush. On Texas the public 
mind was excited, feverish and unstable. His opponent 
thought he could win on the old issues, and hardly realized 



^Before nine months had passed Tyler complained of Polk's unrelenting war 
against his sincere friends in office. To Alexander Gardiner, May 21, 1845. 

^Quoted by Bidlack, in Congressional Globe, 28th Congress, 1st se.-ision p. 662. 
Summers {Congressional Globe, June 4, 1844,) compared the Democratic party to 
"two shipwrecked mariners, who were clinging to a plank on the tempest-tossed ocean, 
each struggling to obtain exclusive possession to the destruction of the other, as the 
only means of salvation; but, when providentially washed ashore, embracing each 
other, and unitedly singing hosannahs in a transport of joy." 



15 

the strength of the Texas measure. Indecent personaHties 
and irrelevant topics gave rise to local flurries, and the 
campaign swept along till the day of election. Clay was 
defeated. The blow was stunning to the Whigs. Fre- 
linghuysen claimed that the defeat in New York was due 
to an "alliance of the foreign vote, and that most impractic- 
able of all organizations, the Abolitionists." Millard Fill- 
more damned the Abolitionists, and despaired of the 
Republic. ''May God save the country; for it is evident 
the people will not."^^ The opinion was general that no 
man of real ability could in the future be elected President ; 
it was to be the reward of mediocrity. Even the Polk 
following was at first amazed by the victoiy. It meant 
the extinction of the Whig party in the southern states. 

Intrigue there had been, and plenty of it, north, south 
and west. The explanation is not sufficient. It was a 
final and irreparable split between North and South. North- 
ern democrats were pitted against southern democrats, 
and the policies of the two sections were diametrically 
opi)osed. The political historian of New York, Hammond, 
told the truth to Van Buren. "More than forty years' 
experience proves the more the Northern Democracy yields 
to the South, the more she demands; and individuals at 
the North, after for years acceding to the wishes of the 
southern men and in the compromising spirit of the Con- 
stitution sustaining what are called 'Southern principles' 
generally receive from that section of the country a feeble 
and reluctant support. """^^ The South was now in open 
revolt, and intent upon securing full control of the Govern- 
ment. Polk was for annexation simply. Van Buren could 
not be brought to see the crux of the situation. Clay always 
thought that the tariff had been the real issue.^^ None 
admitted the existence of the great moral question of the 
extension of slavery.^^ 



^^ Fillmore to Clay, November 11, 1844. 
"^ Hamviond to Van Buren, April 7, 1844. MS. 

2' Meeting in Cinncinati, Salmon P. Chase, chairman, where extension of slavery 
was the principal subject. 

^Clay to James F. Bahcuck and others, December 17, 1844. 



16 

The question in its essence was this: Was the nation 
to take upon itself the support and perpetuation of slaverj- 
in Texas, and of the slave trade between the Southern States 
and the people of that government? The question was far- 
reaching, involving the very existence of the national 
government, and the very continuance of the Constitution. 
No one believed that the South would consent to give up 
one tittle of its hold on the administration of government, 
or one degree of its power in the national legislature. Dic- 
tatorial by training, and wielding a voting strength far 
beyond their due right, were the right of suffrage to be truly 
equal, the men from the South kept their authority by 
measures intolerable in a free country, by methods inde- 
fensible in character and tendency, and by threats indecently 
provocative of scenes in the floor of Congress at once debasing 
and disgraceful. Under the shelter of the Constitution 
as then interpreted, the South claimed protection to its 
peculiar institution, and compelled the North to meet its 
demands. When Calhoun asserted that the annexation 
of Texas was necessary to presence the domestic institutions 
of the two countries — slavery in the United States and 
slavery in Texas — he gave away the whole question. Annex- 
ation would mean an extension and a perpetuation of 
slavery, an increase in the political influence of the slave 
holders, a continuance of the unholy alliance between North 
and South to maintain the compromise in the Constitution. 

Of course, out-and-out annexationists could advance no 
arguments which were not on the lines favored by the 
South. Moderate annexationists could use the relations 
with Mexico, or other interested countries, as a means to 
secure delay; the eventuality would still foster the slave 
power. Jackson, Polk, Clay, Benton, Van Buren and 
others were willing or anxious to take Texas, and for one 
and the same end, however much they seemed to differ 
in arguments. Only the open opponents of annexation 
were able to argue freely though not always effectively. 
The contrast between two Massachusetts men on this side 
of the question was illuminative. Webster made three 
reported speeches during the campaign. In two of them 



17 

he spoke of Texas, but his references were by the way and 
perfunctory.^^ He opposed receiving Texas because he 
would "do nothing, now or at any time, that shall tend to 
extend the slavery of the African race on this continent." 
His speeches were on the tariff, a demand for protection, 
a permanent, settled, steady, protective policy. He made 
the Constitution a cover for this demand, and predicted 
the overthrow of the Constitution should Polk come into 
the Presidency. Did this result follow? Did not the 
course of history- prove that the tariff issue was of little 
importance? 

Against this course of Webster, place that of John Quincy 
Adams. He too made three addresses in the campaign. 
I use the word address advisedly, for campaign speeches 
they were not. It does not follow that they were not 
partisan, as Adams felt strongly the Whig side of the con- 
test; but they were something more than partisan, — a 
personal defence, based upon documentary evidence, upon 
questions, profoundly affecting the position and tendency 
of the American States. They contained excellent his- 
torical material, expressed in vigorous language. The 
more important one was delivered at Boston,^^ and gave 
an account of the negotiations with Mexico for Texas, at 
once a defence against charges of traitorous conduct, an 
attack upon Andrew Jackson, and a protest against a war 
of aggression in behalf of slavery. The second was given 
at Braintree,^^ and was a defence against the malicious 
attacks of Charles J. Ingersoll, and an exposition of the 
causes underlying the Texan question. The third was 
made at North Bridgewater on November 6, and summar- 
ized the essential principles of the campaign. ^^ 

Adams occupied a solitary position, one that was his 
fate for the larger part of his public Hfe. He was a Whig, 



''^ At Philadelphia and VaUey Forge, Works, II. 270, 291 . Towards the end of the 
campaign he did become more expansive on the Texan question, but never left the 
tariff issue. 

^^ Address to the Young Men's Whig Club of Boston, October 7. Printed in the 
National Intelligencer, October 12, 1844. 

^^ Published in Niles's National Register, LXVII, 154. 

^* Printed in the Boston Courier, November, 9, 1844. 



18 

who did not hesitate to lash the leaders of that party in 
State and Nation. He was a supporter of Clay, yet openly 
critical of his policy and often doubtful of his availability. 
He could not accept the Liberty Party, and denounced 
the abolition methods. Such had been his course in the 
past that hardly an important act in his long and varied 
career received commendation. The treaty of Ghent, the 
Florida treaty and his Presidential policy were made the 
bases of serious charges against him; and his opposition to 
the extension of slavery while recognizing the legal rights 
of the States under the Constitution directed upon him the 
concentrated opposition of all parties and factions, the 
abolitionists as well as the regulars. Opposition called 
out his best powers. In Congress he was a master of par- 
liamentary usage, and day after day proved the wrong- 
headedness of the majority by forcing them to go on record. 
Such a contest drawn out for months and years could not 
be fruitful of brilliant victories, and the contemporary view 
was that it was a futile struggle on his part, and crowned 
by a barren victory. Yet looking over the ground at this 
interval of time, the merit of his service and sacrifice becomes 
evident.^^ 

The period was politically one of transition. Feeling 
the increasing power of the economy of the North, the South 
struck out for some addition to its strength that should at 
least enable it to hold its own. Only two methods were 
possible, disunion or an increase of territory and consequent 
voting strength in the House. In either case slavery must 
be maintained as the institution of the southern states. 
To this time enough votes had been obtained from the North 
to enable the South to impose its policy upon the nation. 
It had been a long series of compromises, in which the 
tariff had played a very important part. The industries 

^■^ Barton H. Wise, in the Life of Henry A. Wise, admits the tactical blunder of the 
South in raising the question of the right to petition. "As long as the right to peti- 
tion seemed in any wise abridged, or denied, the anti-slavery party not only awakened 
the sympathies of many on that score, but were also constantly able to provoke 
discussion upon the abstract question of slavery; and thus through its existence in 
the District of Columbia were furnished, as Adams said, with a 'fulcrum for their 
lever, so much so that he declared he would not abolish slavery there, even if it were 
in his own power to do so.' " 



19 

of the North had sent to Congress men who yielded all to 
the South. But the rise of a free West threatened to throw 
over those compromises, and the old arguments no longer 
gave foundation for the old forms of agreement. States- 
manship could no longer rest upon an ability temporarily 
to harmonize North and South, or to transmute a protective 
duty into fugitive slave laws or gag rules. A Clay, who 
could hedge so skillfully as to face both ways, a Webster 
who could subsist on the bounty of manufacturers to do 
their bidding, were as much out of date as a Calhoun, water- 
logged by his slaveiy views, or a Van Buren a northern 
man flirting with southern principles. Compromises had 
broken down. 

While these men, and their like, were local in aim, Adams 
is almost the one man in public life who bulks large, on a 
national scale. He who had negotiated the Florida treaty, 
and alone in Monroe's Cabinet stood out for including 
Texas, could not be mistaken in the meaning to the South 
of annexation in 1844. That very treaty was now brought 
forward as a means of charging him with treachery to his 
country and to his trust. The charge was supported by 
southern men, with Jackson in the lead. The man who 
had deliberately left the Federalist party upon a question 
of principle, and had been the butt of the democracy of 
the Middle West, the Jacksonian democracy, had nothing 
to learn of partisan warfare. The despairing bitterness 
of dying Federalism and the exuberant strength and unre- 
strained coarseness of the new democracy had given him 
a varied experience in all forms of abuse. He had seen his 
own policy as President hooted out of court by his successors, 
and he returned to Congress with no backing other than 
was given by the handful of supporters in his district, and 
by his own unquestioned abilities and upright heart. 

He possessed in a great measure a quality that is par- 
ticularly exasperating, — an intelligently directed unexpect- 
edness. He alone was able to speak the truth, no matter 
how unpalatable to friend and foe. While Polk was ringing 
all possible changes on Texas, and while Clay was striving 
to stem the current towards annexation by bending to its 



20 

force, Adams stated exactly what had been, was, and was 
to be. His learning and method made his exposition of 
telling and permanent weight. After 1844 it would be 
impossible to hold to the charge that Texas had been sac- 
rificed by Adams in 1819, or that Jackson's course on that 
question had even a shadow of consistency to cover its 
naked weakness. After 1844 no one need have gone astray 
as to Jackson's fairness, his prejudices, or his intentions 
in his approaches to Texas. The plain statement of facts 
by Adams, touched as it was with an intense personal 
indignation, put an end to the flow of misrepresentation 
which served to cloak greed and political intrigue. The 
blow told where he wanted it most to tell. Jackson and 
his followers gasped, denounced "little Johnny Q," that 
wicked old man, that mendacious old scoundrel, and poured 
out replies that did everything but overthrow the cold 
facts so regularly marshalled by Adams. His progress in 
developing his attitude on slavery had been rapid, and had 
landed him in an unexpected position. The Missouri 
question of 1820 brought the question and its possibilities 
before him, but vaguely. Was it not Rufus King, one of 
the really able men of the day, who first pointed out to 
Adams the dire consequences lurking in that problem of 
statehood? After his Presidency he took his ground, and 
told the South that most unpalatable truth, the doom of 
slavery, and from that time he becomes the embodiment 
of that question. So much so that the movement to expel 
him from the House was based upon the idea that if he could 
be removed from the councils of the nations or silenced 
on the exasperating subject to which he was devoting him- 
self none other could be found hardy enough to fill his place. ^* 
But he did not confine himself to criticism and denun- 
ciation of conduct ; he had a remedy, which involved punish- 
ment to the South, in that it would deprive them of their 
special privilege of unequal representation. He saw the 
evil in the aristocratic provision of the Constitution that 
gave to a small number of whites in the slave states a dis- 



^ Thomas T. Marshall, quoted in Quincy's Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 388. 



21 

proportionate share of political power on account of their 
property in their fellowmen. To him, this human chattel 
representation was the "fatal drop of prussic acid" in the 
Constitution of the United States, opposed to popular 
representation, to self-evident truths, and to the letter and 
spirit of the Constitution itself. It was not so much that 
each holder of slaves had substantially two votes, but 
that "every member representing slaves is bound in league 
offensive and defensive, with all the rest. Every member 
represents the whole mass. They are knit together in one 
line, while diverse interests and conflicting opinions distract 
the councils of the other portion of the House, and always 
surrender the cause of freedom to the congregated repre- 
sentatives of slavery. "^^ This was the situation in the 
Senate, in the Executive and in the Judiciary as well as 
in the House. Was it not true courage that inspired him 
to attack a policy so strongly intrenched? 

The system of representation in the national legislature 
was indefensibly wrong. That a slaveholder and five slaves 
should exercise four times the political influence of a free- 
man was a condition only equal to the rotten borough system 
in England in the eighteenth century. Even if a good word 
could be said in its favor in 1788, no good word could be 
said in its behalf in 1844. It involved an inequality that 
was vitally oppressive and of unending mischief in the 
political life of the Nation. ^^ It was a Massachusetts man^^ 
who stated in a public report that slave representation was 
"effecting, by slow but sure degrees, the overthrow of all 
the noble principles that were embodied in the Federal 
Constitution," and the Massachusetts legislature asked 
for the repeal of the clause in the Constitution providing 
for the representation of slaves. Adams welcomed the 
support as giving him the first and probably the last 
opportunity of giving to the world his deliberate ;opinion 



'^^ Adams to Seward, May 10, 1844. MS. 

•'* In April, 1844, John Quincy Adams wrote "the standing supremacy of the slave 
representation is 112, a bare majority of the House, consisting of 80 slave-holders 
and thirty-two free-trade auxiliaries." Memoirs, XII, 14. 

^'Charles Francis Adams. See also his pamphlet, Texas and the Massachusetts 
Resolutions, Boston, 1844. 



22 

upon so disastrous a feature of American political insti- 
tutions.^* 

What then did the campaign of 1844 solve? Not the an- 
nexation of Texas, because that measure was already assured 
in spite of the decent attitude of delay or reserve some of 
the leaders might assume. Not questions of tariff, bank, 
distribution or land sales, for no popular mandate could 
dictate the details of measures in which private interests 
were predominant. The personality of Polk meant nothing, 
not so much in fact as the personality of the defeated can- 
didate, Clay. Yet there was then decided one of the most 
momentous issues in our history. North was at last pitted 
against South, and the struggle for supremacy was to last 
for sixteen years, under constantly aggravating friction. 
The policy of the South was determined beyond any change, 
and it only asked an impossibility — to be allowed to work out 
its destiny without aid, counsel or interference from the 
North. The situation made it impossible for Polk to recog- 
nize the Van Buren wing of his party. No follower of 
Van Buren was given a place in the Cabinet, or received 
an office which gave access to the President. Marcy was 
an opponent to Van Buren; Buchanan had plotted against 
him; and both were willing to vote for what the South 
desired. The split in the party was not to be healed, and 
the old leaders went down before it. A younger generation 
was coming forward, men like Seward, Giddings and Chase, 
who would be in at the death of this issue of slavery, them- 
selves leaders in a new party, and themselves disciples of 
John Quincy Adams. Turn the hands of the clock on a 
little. The homely and direct pronouncement of Lincoln, 
"The Nation cannot exist half slave, half free," could have 
been uttered by Adams, for it expressed his opinion. The 



^With Joshua R. Giddings, Adams prepared the minority report on these resolu- 
tions of the Massachusetts Legislature, 2Sth Cong. 1 sess. House Report 404. The 
incident is of high interest. The committee appointed by the House to consider 
these resolutions consisted of nine members, Adams, Rhett, (for whom Burt was 
substituted) J. R. Ingersoll, Gilmer, Garrett Davis, Burke, Sample, Morse and Gid- 
dings. Six reports were presented: Giddings joined with Adams, Burt with Gilmer 
Davis with Ingersoll, and individual reports were made by Burke, Sample and Morse. 
it would be difficult to find a similar instance of discrepant views. 



23 

freeing of the slaves under stress of war and an armed 
occupation of the southern states, was only a fulfilment 
of Adam's assertion of emancipation under martial law. 
With the disappearance of slavery also went the chattel 
representation in Congress, and so the "drop of prussic 
acid" was extracted from the Constitution. "The moral 
question of the North American revolution," said Adams, 
" was one and the same with that of the institution of domes- 
tic slavery. It is a question between might and right, 
between the law of justice and the law of force." The 
campaign of 1844 marked the culminating point in Adams's 
career, and leaves him in high relief as the statesman of 
that time. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 783 264 8 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS *^ 



011 783 264 8 



-W* 



